, who stood up on a barrel and made a speech; and presently
two of the artists caught hold of the grey-bearded captain and chaired
him round the deck. The night was so clear, the skies so ruddily
beautiful, the air so soft, and out here on the open sea all hearts were
light and happy.

"Who's that wooden-faced beggar over there that's too high and mighty
for a little fun?" asked Storaker the painter, of his friend the
sculptor Praas.

"That fellow? Oh, he's the one that was so infernally instructive at
dinner, when we were talking about Egyptian vases."

"So it is, by Jove! Schoolmaster abroad, I should think. When we got
on to Athens and Greek sculpture he condescended to set us right about
that, too."

"I heard him this morning holding forth to the doctor on Assyriology. No
wonder he doesn't dance!"

The passenger they were speaking of was a man of middle height, between
thirty and forty apparently, who lay stretched in a deck-chair a little
way off. He was dressed in grey throughout, from his travelling-cap
to the spats above his brown shoes. His face was sallow, and the short
brown beard was flecked with grey. But his eyes had gay little gleams in
them as they followed the dancers. It was Peer Holm.

As he sat there watching, it annoyed him to feel that he could not let
himself go like the others. But it was so long since he had mixed with
his own countrymen, that he felt insecure of his footing and almost like
a foreigner among them. Besides, in a few hours now they should sight
the skerries on the Norwegian coast; and the thought awoke in him a
strange excitement--it was a moment he had dreamed of many and many a
time out there in the wide world.

After a while stillness fell on the decks around him, and he too went
below, but lay down in his cabin without undressing. He thought of
the time when he had passed that way on the outward voyage, poor and
unknown, and had watched the last island of his native land sink below
the sea-rim. Much had happened since then--and now that he had at last
come home, what life awaited him there?

A little after two in the morning he came on deck again, but stood
still in astonishment at finding that the vessel was now boring her way
through a thick woolly fog. The devil! thought he, beginning to tramp up
and down the deck impatiently. It seemed that his great moment was to be
lost--spoiled for him! But suddenly he stopped by the railing, and stood
gazing out into the east